Working espionage into a regular game more

[futurehermit]

I find I don't use espionage really at all in most of my games. At most, I will use some spies to revolt cities prior to attacking. I often have 1000s of EPs against various AIs that just go to waste. I play monarch/normal/standard.

When BtS first came out I used to regularly set up a dedicated espionage city mid-game when all the espionage buildings came online (democracy/communism). This would give me 200-300 EP/turn that I would use in various ways. Mainly, I was going space race a lot and would use the EP to do as much damage to my closest opponent as possible.

But more and more I've just been avoiding espionage altogether.

I know that it is possible to do espionage-heavy games where you get your tech nearly 100% from espionage, etc. I have enjoyed those games on these forums a great deal. However, that is not what I'm talking about here. I'm just talking about making use of espionage to spice up my games more and make use of the EPs that I am accumulating.

What are you guys doing with your EPs??

I'm thinking if you sent a stack of spies to a tech-leader's capital in the medieval era and used them to simultaneously wipe out all health and happiness buildings and to poison water and foment unhappiness all in the same turn this could be an annoyance to that leader (assuming they are getting most of their tech from the capital). If you were to do that a few times in a row, you could potentially cripple their tech rate?

Or is it really just best to use your EPs to romp through their empire, inciting revolts as you go?

 

[Polobo]

In my current game (Bismarck, Huge Big-Small) I am running an SE, but my capital and another city each have 1 (now the other has 2) gold mines, plus trade routes and multiple calendar resources (and a couple of cottages) in my other cities, that I set the EP slider to 10-20%. I also got the great wall and two early great spies (one settled, one for Scotland yard). I am maintaining near tech parity but have already stolen a couple of techs on the path not taken. I easily have the most EP and am routinely catching spies (although those that get through are poisoning my water).

I am planning on using spies to incite revolt and sending (2 turns away) a stack of Currassiers at the GNP (HC) leader's capital and raze it to the ground.

Mostly, however, I work toward the passive benefits that espionage gives, focusing in on a target only when the opportunity arises. If I am going to send in siege stack anyway I often won't bother with spies directly, although if I have a cavalry detachment as part of the stack I will keep spies in the stack as well, but not use them on the cities I plan on besieging if bombardment will work reasonably well.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Besides the obvious great wall great spy stealing trick, i like spying for diplomacy.

Lets say you have a friend who is friendly with you, and you'd like him to attack someone But he's also pleased or friendly with that AI. Solution? Use a spy mission to have your target switch civics or religion long enough to get rid of the diplo bonuses and have him drop down to cautious or pleased so your friend will attack him.

And yeah, poisoning + unhappiness at the same time is pretty destructive. You're guaranteed to have them drop multiples in population. I like this for UN diplo wins. I poison and make unhappy every city of my opponent and his allies, as each population drop is less points. Meanwhile raise your own population by placing more farms.

Another thing i realized in a recent game is that destroying a mature town costs the same EP as any other improvement. Destroying farms and plantations and stuff is a waste, their army of workers will replace it in no time. But destroying a fully mature town can be pretty damn destructive. it doesn't just go down 1 level like when you pillage, it destroys the entire thing, down to an empty plot.

 

[Ibian]

Its like you said FH, spies are an annoyance. But not enough of one to make them a priority.

Their most dangerous use, dropping defenses right before an attack, only matters if you are already losing. Poisoned water means you lose a few turns worth of food, but it never seems to actually kill anyone. And i have only had the AI destroy one of my strategic resources a single time so far, not a huge concern (i just sent a settler and a few guards to rebuild it, and then i left them there until it was time to attack).

 

[aelf]

I've just received BTS from Amazon and I'm playing it again after about 6 months. I used to not use espionage much either, but right now I'm playing a game as Suleiman focusing on specialist-powered espionage. Imperialistic has good synergy with the Great Wall, and I've generated two GGs in the first war. Problem is Joao, who declared a war he cannot win in the early game, refuses to sign peace treaty even after I've demolished one of his cities and killed wave after wave of his troops. And with only one settled Great Spy and no Scotland Yard so far, EPs are not coming in fast enough for my spies to steal lots of techs to keep up. Tough game.

Hopefully this experimental game will teach me a thing or two about an espionage-centred game. Once the current Immortal Challenge is finished, we should be able to have the long-overdue spying EMC.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

revolt non spiritual civs. to make them waste turns and make them lose race to key techs if they're close to me. Leaving aside little comes close to revolting them in the middle of the war to pacifism

used to poison/unhappy main cities, but that's been downcoded

 

[madscientist]

I view espionage as a three aspect thing

1) prevention of AI espionage attacks.

2) reduce a cities defense quickly before capturing.

3) Steal techs.

Number 1 you can get by simply allowing eps to accumulate without using spies. Occasionally I'll send a spy into the AI lands to perform a counter espionage mission.

Number 2 works best pre-catapult age or during the castle era (where it takes forever to reduce the AI defenses.

Number 3 is always good if you can get enough against one Ai to steal. It requires either a settled GSpy or scottland yard, or all teh eps directed against them

To annoy and harrass the AI by poisoning water, forment unhappiness seams a waster as it really does not hurt the AI all that much to make a difference. If you can nail a lone oil reserve though that's big.

Switching civics/change religion can help. The civics helps to either boost diplomacy temporarily to get a trade or war issues but the AI almost always reverts back in ten turns. The religion can sometimes work if there are enough cities with the new religion (I did this repeated to Stalin in the Asoka RPC until he adopted FR to end the religious debate).

Also remember eps disappear once the AI is killed off, so if your going in for the kill unlease your full wrath on them.

But sometimes it takes ALOT of time to deal with espionage and sometimes it's not really needed. It's a game to game thing. It's really nice when you actually get a mega-espionage city though.

 

[ese-aSH]

In standard games, passive spying is already great:
- know what AIs (at least, tech leaders) are working on to follow another techpath.
- see AIs cities to anticipate / prevent an attack.
- increase the cost of AIs spying missions.

 

[Polobo]

I made good use in my current game of stealing from HC's treasury (he has over 5000 gold, and I got nothing to trade him). I was in a golden age powered, US, war building phase and wanted as much gold as possible to augment by unit production (and a few buildings). I ran 100% gold and stole from HC during this time frame and it worked out quite well.

Along that line, I've noticed that the amount of gold that can be stolen varies depending upon the size of the city. Does anyone know how to calculate how much gold will be recovered without actually planting a spy and checking the mission?

 

[Porphyrius]

Most use is either passive effects that let me estimate wether and how plan for the next war or tech stealing. Most of the rest is semi useless.

Unhapiness/unhealthiness attacks need to many spies to use frequently enough to get a proper effect.
Sabotaging has the same problem though i do use it against a single vital resource on times.

My main issue is i cant run enough spy specialists until quite late, to thus specialize a couple of cities to make EPs. I tried going all EE but NEVER having a military tech lead and always accepting the AIs order of teching is just to much of a pian. So mostly i try to get and use 1-2 GSpies for infiltrations to steal late medieval/early renaissance techs. And whatever building / the few spy specialists i can afford net me goes mostly to support passive espionage.



If something allowed for more/unlimited spy specialists even in one city i could change my mind.